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阐述零和机制对游戏平衡性的影响

发布时间:2012-09-02 09:08:06 Tags:,,,

作者:Soren Johnson

在零和游戏中,一名玩家有所得,那么其他玩家必然有所失,从而实现得失平衡,这就好像打完手牌后赢到一堆筹码。根据严格的游戏理论,许多竞争型游戏并不是真正的零和。以足球为例,射门得分并不是从另一队的得分中扣掉三分。

然而,更宽泛地说,“零和机制”这个词意味着损害对手好比是让自己获得相等的价值。在典型的RTS如《星际争霸》中,玩家经常使用突击策略,目的是尽快破坏敌人的经济,这种方法就像发展自己的经济一样可行。只要可以快速摧毁敌人的第一个单位,无论自己的军队发展到什么程度都没关系。

Zero Sum(from recruitingblogs.com)

Zero Sum(from recruitingblogs.com)

因此,只要游戏对玩家阻碍敌人的奖励与增强自己的奖励相当,这款游戏就具有零和机制。大多数团体运动(篮球、英式足球、美式足球等)都有这个特点:防守(阻止对方得分)和进攻(争取己方得分)一样重要。

竞争型游戏的零和特点就更加根深蒂固了。格斗游戏的平衡方式是,以损害对方的命值来保护自己的命值。策略游戏鼓励玩家破坏敌人的计划,同时保护自己的计划。而在射击游戏中,玩家要尽可能多杀敌人,同时执行某些平行任务,如占领旗帜或关卡。

事实上,当设计竞争型游戏时,零和机制就是一个默认选项。然而,这种机制的普遍存在掩盖了许多许多问题。的确,从最好的方面讲,零和机制是不可避免的恶;从最坏的方面讲,零和机制是游戏设计中犯下的顽固错误,使许多玩家离开游戏。

零和问题

零和机制的问题是,给某些人带来消极体验——眼睁睁地看着自己的角色在《街头霸王》中被消灭,看着自己的建筑在《帝国时代》中崩塌,看着小队成员在《军团要塞》死了一个又一个。一名玩家的快乐来自另一名玩家的痛苦。

其实,竞争型游戏不需要让另一名玩家受苦。游戏的规则决定了玩家交互活动的频率和程度。基本上,设计师决定了玩家在游戏中如何产生交互活动。确实,竞争型游戏甚至可能不存在玩家之间的相互影响——想想平行运动,如高尔夫球和保龄球,或带有异步排行榜的在线游戏,如《宝石迷阵闪电战》和《Burnout Paradise》。

是重要的区别是,玩家是否损失当前进度或是否只丧失了继续前进的能力。对于前者,在带有零和特点的游戏机制中,失去进度通常是一段不愉快的体验,往往是失败的必然之路。相反地,德式桌面游戏的一个明显特点是避免这么直接、零和的玩家斗争,而倾向于有限的、间接的交互活动,以避免破坏玩家的进度。

例如,在德式桌面游戏中,如《Agricola》和《Caylus》,玩家轮流选择独有的技能;玩家想方设法夺得决定谁得到最佳工作的地位。如果玩家知道自己的对手需要食物,就给自己选择食物的工作,这样就会使对手的财富受到重大损失。然而,与在《帝国时代》中破坏敌人的农场和杀害敌人的村民相比,这两种策略存在本质的差别。

Caylus(from dahus.info)

Caylus(from dahus.info)

在前一种情况下,消极作用可能只是暂时的;而在后一种情况中,玩家的情绪会受到严重的打击,并且恢复的机会很小。其实,在《Agricola》中,花太多时间破坏对手的玩家往往也要付出代价,因为每一次破坏行动都要支付珍贵的机遇成本。相反地,在RTS中,尽早破坏对手却没有害处;摧毁另一名玩家的经济事实上可以为自己的建设发展争取到宝贵的时间。

平衡RTS游戏,不奖励提前破坏其他玩家经济基础的行为,是极其困难的。确实,零和机制在RTS游戏中起的主导作用太强大,可以说因此鼓励了玩家采用突击战术。许多玩家采用“非突击”的自订规则,人为地重新平衡游戏玩法,以免突击战术过早地结束游戏。

进一步地说,许多RTS游戏结束得无声无息,而不是以大战一场收尾,这是因为游戏的终极目标就是摧毁敌人的军事,这意味着在游戏进行到一半是,结果就很明显了。在《车票之旅》中,玩家在用完组件以前要竞争路线,玩家的紧张情绪是不断升级的。而在《星际争霸》中,玩家的紧张情绪先是上升然后下降——不幸的是,下降的部分对于失败者来说纯粹是件痛苦的事。

然而,零和机制不仅限于RTS游戏。经济游戏,如《Anno》、《铁路大亨》或甚至《M.U.L.E.》,主要的目标获得财富、看谁积累得最快,因此游戏不必鼓励或允许一名玩家攻击另一名玩家。

在军事RTS游戏中也可能出现竞争型机制的替代品。《魔兽争霸3》引入了中立角色,这类角色占领冲突地图的中心区域,玩家抢先杀掉中立角色才能得到经验点和奖励。也许新的RTS可以进一步采用这种机制,使游戏的焦点只放在杀死中立角色上?

减少消极作用

许多竞争型游戏解决零和问题的方法是,严格地限制交互活动,使玩家就只能在某种情况下影响彼此。例如,在《马里奥赛车》中,玩家只有在某个地点捡起限制使用次数的炮弹后才能射击另一名玩家;甚至之后,玩家只有在比赛中尾随才能得到最强大的炮弹。在残忍的RTS中,除非玩家建完第一个兵营、训练了军队、最后将军队领到战场,否则就不能进攻。

因此,最小化零和玩法的消极作用,限制玩家的交互活动是非常有效的方法。根据允许哪一类交互活动,带有相似主题和规则的游戏可以极大地改变游戏玩法。例如,《部落战争》和《Empires & Allies》是相似的异步即时战略游戏,玩家要发展军事,然后进攻敌人。然而,这两款游戏之间存在重大区别,从玩家入侵对方的城市时发生了什么事可以看出来。

在《部落战争》中,进攻是严格的零和的;进攻者从防守者的贮存中获得资源。而在《Empires & Allies》中,战斗是正和的;进攻者是凭空得到资源的。另外,《部落战争》中的死亡单位会从游戏中消失,而《Empires & Allies》中的防守单位总是活着,即使被打败了。

empires & allies(from mobiletmt.com)

empires & allies(from mobiletmt.com)

《Empires & Allies》秘密地掩饰了玩家对战斗的预期——胜利需要战败方,这个设计选择很有效,因为它使游戏更容易玩,玩家的情绪不会受太多影响。相反地,《部落战争》采用的是传统的方法,即一名玩家的获得需要另一名玩家的损失。这种设计选择创造了一个险恶的游戏世界,里面尽是坏脾气、野蛮的玩家。

许多设计师本能地认为,斗争必须是零和的,但这种偏见可能会导致很多玩家不玩他们的游戏。玩家在游戏体验中产生的情绪已经足够真实了,所以需要玩家至少遭受一点儿情绪损失的机制,应该谨慎使用。

增加积极作用

有时候,替换方法实在太简单了。在桌面游戏《七大奇迹》中,玩家的竞争路线有多条——科技、文明、建筑、财富和军事。在这类游戏中,默认执行军事行动的方法是,允许玩家培养军队进攻其他玩家的单位、建筑或资源。然而,《七大奇迹》却采用了非常不同的方法。

该游戏分成三个时期,在各个时期的末尾,具有最多军队的玩家得到正得分,而其他玩家得到负得分。此外,总得分的分配是正和的,所以战败对玩家的损失程度不会与战胜的获得程度相当。因此,军事策略并不会使其他竞争路线变得可有可无。游戏的平衡性是比较良好的:自己的强大军事不会防碍科技强大的对手获胜,因为军事胜利不会导致失败方损失进度。

确实,正和玩法的优势也有利于游戏设计的其他方面。以《益智之谜》为例,通过保证每一次战斗都是正和的,从而避免玩家手动保存系统。玩家在战斗中不会损失道具,且在每一次战斗中总会得到至少一点点金钱和经验。因此,玩家在战斗结束后总是进展得更好了,无论战斗本身是输还是赢。所以,游戏可以不断地自动保存。这种功能与传统的零和设计相比,可能太硬核了。设计师没有移除载入/保存系统(这样会阻碍新玩家进入游戏),却拓宽了游戏的普及范围。

基本上,零和机制仍然是游戏设计师的强大工具,因为它们可以唤起玩家的情绪。有时候,允许玩家互相破坏正是游戏必需的。然而,并非所有斗争都必定是零和的,特别是因为这种设计选择具有极大的缺陷。毕竟,不一定要采用让失败者受苦,胜利者才能成功的玩法。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

GD Column 21: More Than Zero

by Soren Johnson

A zero-sum game is one in which the gains of any one player are balanced out by the losses of all the other players, such as winning a pot of chips after a hand of poker. Using strict game theory terminology, many competitive games are not actually zero-sum. Scoring a field goal in football, for example, does not take three points away from the other team.

However, more loosely speaking, the phrase “zero-sum mechanics” can mean that hurting one’s opponent is as equally valuable as helping oneself. In a typical RTS like StarCraft, a rush strategy, which aims to destroy the enemy’s economy as soon as possible, is just as viable as a boom strategy, which focuses on building up one’s own economy. If one can quickly wipe out the enemy’s first units, it’s irrelevant what level of development one’s own troops ever reach.

Thus, whenever a game rewards the player equally for hindering the enemy as for strengthening herself, the game has a zero-sum mechanic. Most team sports (basketball, soccer, football, etc.) share this characteristic; the defense, which prevents the opposition from scoring, is just as important as the offense, which does the scoring.

Competitive games are firmly rooted in this soil. Fighting games balance protecting one’s own health with taking away the health of the opponent. Strategy games encourage countering an enemy’s plans as well as perfecting one’s own. Shooters combine killing as many enemies as possible while also fulfilling some parallel goal, such as capturing a flag or checkpoint.

Zero-sum mechanics, in fact, seem to be the default choice when designing competitive games. However, their ubiquity masks the many, many problems with this type of gameplay. Indeed, zero-sum mechanics are, at best, a necessary evil and, at worst, a wrongheaded approach to game design that turns away many potential players.

The Zero Problem

The problem with zero-sum mechanics is that they require a negative experience for someone – watching a devastating combo annihilate one’s character in Street Fighter, watching one’s buildings crumble in Age of Empires, dying and respawning over and over again in Team Fortress. One player’s pleasure results from another player’s pain.

In fact, competitive games do not require that another player must suffer. A game’s rules determine the frequency and intensity of player interaction; ultimately, the designer decides how players will interact with each other during play. Indeed, competitive games are even possible without players being able to affect one another at all – consider parallel sports like golf or bowling, for example, or online games with asynchronous leaderboards like Bejewelled Blitz or Burnout Paradise.

The most important distinction is whether a player can lose their current progress or if they can only lose the ability to continue progressing. In the former case, the game mechanics have a zero-sum feel as losing one’s progress is usually a painful experience and often a sure route to a loss. In contrast, one of the defining traits of the Eurogame movement (epitomized by games like Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan) is eschewing such direct, zero-sum player conflict in favor of limited, indirect interaction which will not destroy a player’s progress.

For example, in worker placement Eurogames, such as Agricola and Caylus, players take turns choosing exclusive abilities; the competition emerges from players jockeying for position to determine who gets to grab the best jobs first. If a player knows his opponent needs food, choosing the food job for himself can seriously damage this opponent’s fortunes. However, this tactic is qualitatively different from actually destroying an enemy’s farms and killing his villagers in Age of Empires.

In the former case, the setback may only be temporary; in the latter, the player suffers a heavy emotional loss and has little chance of recovery. In fact, a player who spends too much time trying to disrupt his opponents in a game like Agricola can often dig his own hole as each precious action has significant opportunity costs. In contrast, damaging an opponent early in an RTS has little downside; wiping out another player’s economy can actually buy valuable time to grow one’s own much larger.

Balancing a RTS game to not reward destroying another player’s economic base as soon as possible is extremely hard. Indeed, RTS games suffer heavily from a dominance of zero-sum mechanics, which encourage the rush. Many players adopt “no-rushing” house rules to manually rebalance the gameplay away from destructive raids and towards building up for the endgame.

Further, many RTS games end with a whimper instead of a bang because the end goal is usually wiping out the enemy’s forces, which means that the outcome is obvious halfway through the match. In Ticket to Ride, during which players race to complete routes before running out of pieces, the dramatic tension is a consistently rising slope. In contrast, the dramatic tension of StarCraft is an arc which rises and then falls, and – unfortunately – the downward side of this arc is simply a sequence of painful events for the loser.

However, zero-sum mechanics need not be endemic to the RTS genre. Consider economic games, like the Anno series or Railroad Tycoon or even M.U.L.E., in which the primary goal is the acquisition of wealth; because the players are in a race to see who grows the fastest, the games need not encourage – or even allow – players to attack one another.
Alternate competitive mechanics are possible in military RTS games as well. Warcraft 3 introduced the creep – neutral characters who occupy the central area of skirmish maps and who players race to kill for the rewards and experience points. Perhaps a new RTS could take this mechanic a step further and make the game focus solely on killing creeps?

Removing the Negatives

Many competitive games solve the zero-sum problem by severely limiting interaction, so that players can only affect each other under certain circumstances. In Mario Kart, for example, racers can only shoot one another after picking up limited-use shells from certain locations; even then, players will only get the most powerful shells if they are trailing in the race. Even in a cutthroat RTS, a player can only attack after first building a barracks, then training troops, and finally moving them into position.

Thus, limiting player interaction is a powerful tool for minimizing negative emotions from zero-sum play. Games with similar themes and rules can dramatically change their feel depending on what sort of interaction is allowed. For example, Travian and Empires & Allies are similar asynchronous strategy games played over months of real-time about developing a military and then attacking one’s enemies. However, an important difference separates these two games with what happens when players invade each other’s cities.

In Travian, attacks are strictly zero-sum; resources captured by the attacker are taken from the defender’s stockpile. In Empires & Allies, however, combat is actually positive-sum; the resources captured by the attacker are conjured from nothing. Furthermore, while units which die in Travian are removed from the game, defending units in Empires always stay alive, even after a defeat.

Empires quietly belies players’ expectations for combat – that a victory requires a defeat – and this design choices pays off by making the game more accessible and less emotionally draining. In contrast, Travian uses the traditional approach that one player’s gain requires another player’s loss; accordingly, this design choice creates a nasty world full of brutish players with short tempers.

Many designers instinctively assume that conflict must be zero-sum, but this prejudice may be keeping their games from reaching a larger audience. The emotions players experience during a game are real enough, so a mechanic that requires at least some players to suffer should be used carefully.

Adding the Positives

Sometimes, alternate solutions are blindingly simple. In the board game 7 Wonders, players compete along multiple axises – earning victory points for science, civics, buildings, wealth, and military. The default way to implement military in such a game would be to allow players who invest in an army to attack other players’ units, buildings, or resources. 7 Wonders, however, employs a very different approach.

The game is split into three epochs, and at the end of each epoch, players with the largest armies receive positive points while the other players receive negative points. Furthermore, the total point distribution is actually positive-sum, so that losing combat does not hurt a player as much as winning combat helps. Thus, the military strategy does not drown out all the others and is appropriately balanced; a strong military cannot prevent an opponent from winning with strong technology because military victories do not require the loser to forfeit her progress.

Indeed, the spirit of positive-sum gameplay can benefit other aspects of game design. Puzzle Quest, for example, avoids a manual save system by ensuring every combat is positive-sum; players can never lose an item during combat and will always gain at least a little gold and experience from each battle. Thus, a player is always better off after combat, whether a win or a loss, so the game can constantly auto-save into a single slot. This feature, which would be hardcore if paired with a traditional zero-sum design, instead removes the need for a load/save system, which can be a barrier to entry for new players, thereby expanding the game’s potential reach.

Ultimately, zero-sum mechanics are still a powerful tool for game designers as they can unlock primal emotions. Sometimes, allowing players to destroy each other is exactly what a game needs. However, not all conflict need be zero-sum, especially since that design choice has significant disadvantages. Losers need not suffer so that winners can triumph.(source:designer)


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